


trigger, bang

by wastes



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Heartbeats, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Timeskip, i guess, please read them, there are not tags for this very odd niche kink(?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastes/pseuds/wastes
Summary: At eight, Kentarou turns from boy to weapon, always set on a hair-trigger.
Relationships: Kyoutani Kentarou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	trigger, bang

**Author's Note:**

> tw/cw: death/bereavement/grief, overdose, drug use/substance abuse ment, self-harm ment, alcohol, guns ment/metaphor, blood/vein talk, depersonalisation/derealisation/unreality etc, implied sexual content
> 
> there's a death scene at the start and nothing graphic afterwards.

Shaky hands and the squeeze of a trigger. One, two, five, ten seconds. Release—

Bang.

  


—

  


The first time Kentarou meets death, he is eight. 

It doesn’t feel like there should be a difference between a sleeping body and a dead one, but there is. Maybe it’s something in how humans seek out life and warmth as a primal instinct, so the lack of it is all-encompassing. As soon as he steps in, he knows something is wrong. His heart turns to glacial rock in his chest. He freezes for so long he thinks maybe he has died too. How would he know, when there is no other reference point of life in the room? He is eight and his imagination is unchecked and all at once, he has convinced himself that he is a ghost sharing a room with his mother’s last breaths.

By the time his father comes home, it’s too late. For the body and for Kentarou.

_Did you check her pulse?_

_Wh— Her what?_

_Her pulse, you stupid boy! Her heartbeat!_

You can inexplicably feel the moment a body turns to a corpse. Death stinks, the stench of it grabs onto your clothes and skin, seeps into your bones, and you can’t wash it off. He learns all this far too young. 

And then he learns every pulse point in the human body, recites them like a litany, sears them into his mind. He never manages to convince himself that he’s real again, that he walked out of that room a whole person. But when he presses fingers to his carotid, so hard that he can feel the shift of ligaments and cartilage when he swallows, he almost believes it. He presses so hard that he can still feel the phantom pressure for minutes afterwards. The pain keeps him present. It’s the only thing that does.

In the most simple, biological sense, a pulse means life. As long as there is blood in veins, he has a chance. As long as he can hurt, he is living. So he flings caution to the wind, lets it take a beating and doesn’t pick it up again. 

  


—

  


At eight, Kentarou turns from boy to weapon, always set on a hair-trigger. 

  


—

  


Bang.

  


—

  


He picks volleyball because it keeps him awake. The sting of a ball against his palm, forearms battered and bruised from receives. The pain grounds him. (And it had to be volleyball or it would have been a needle in his arm or a blade against his skin.) 

Aoba Johsai’s teal uniform is ugly on him. It doesn’t fit the rest of his demeanour, his bleached head and mean eyes. But it works for the rest of them, with their deadly elegance. There is an alien cohesiveness to the team, and Kentarou is as enthralled as he is repulsed. It’s a secret he keeps from himself, how much he wants to be more than just a spanner in their works, how he revels in and hates the term loose cannon. 

He never loses his incongruity or sharp edges, but he eventually learns to work with them, rather than against them. By third year he can almost, almost say he feels welcome with them. 

They never make it to Nationals, but the less time Kentarou spends on the court makes him dangerously more aware of how much he never wants to leave it. So he doesn’t.

  


—

  


“How is he so fucking loud?” Kentarou mutters to himself. Sendai Frogs freshman tryouts have him on the bench watching a huge, entirely too-enthusiastic-for-a-Monday setter yelling on the court.

“You get used to it.” 

Kentarou turns his head to the voice and his ribcage caves in. He doesn’t say anything and the other continues, “Koganegawa? Yeah, he’s probably just gonna get worse, if anything.”

“Right,” Kentarou eventually replies, and the word doesn’t come out like it should.

“Tsukishima Kei. Karasuno.” 

“I remember you.”

And he does. He remembers the tall impassionate middle blocker who walked the court like it was a chore. He remembers _Karasuno’s beanpole that blocked Ushiwaka._ He _doesn’t_ remember this glint in his eye, the lilting challenge in his voice. That’s new. Along with the nameless _s_ _omething_ pooling in his own stomach. It’s a finger on a trigger. 

Kentarou stares at Kei who is watching the court and brings a hand to his throat, concealing the gesture behind scratching his jaw. He feels the steady beat under his fingers, pictures the blood rushing, reminding him that, yes, he’s here, he’s alive, this is real. Release— 

“Kyoutani-san. Are you okay?” Kei’s voice is bland but his eyes are sharp. Kentarou looks away. _Why do you know my name? (Say it again.)_

“I’m fine.” 

It occurs to Kentarou that this is what wanting something is like. He wants and he wants, but he can’t have this. Won’t pretend like he can, so he swallows it down and hides it away.

  


—

  


Bang, bang, bang.

  


—

  


They win a match, and then another, and another. Because Koganegawa is a terrifying setter, in both stature and skill; and Kei is Kei, long-limbed, sharpened to a knife point, on and off the court. The old members weren’t bad, but with the two of them, winning becomes more of an inevitability than anything. Kentarou could get drunk off that feeling. Knowing he gets to stay on the court, hand slamming against the ball, the stark reminder of his reality. 

So they win a big match, and someone suggests an afterparty, and one thing blurs into another and then Kentarou is in someone’s cousin’s house and they are absolutely _not_ allowed to touch the tapestries and everything is so fucking _green_. 

Kentarou wasn’t planning to drink much, never found it in himself to learn to enjoy the lack of control. It was supposed to be a couple of drinking games and watching the record of the match. But he sees Kei with one of their benchwarmers, a freshman with a beer in his hand and an easy smile on his face and they’re sitting so close— Kei’s never let anyone, let Kentarou, that close— and then Kei laughs and every other sound in the room fizzles to nothing. Kentarou doesn’t need to check his pulse to feel it rise, from jealousy or anger or something else redder and more savage. So when Kogane offers him a drink, he takes it, and then another, drowning the thing in his stomach in vodka and whatever the fuck else it is that tastes so bad. _Fuck._

“Kyoutani-san?” someone says. Kentarou can’t match a voice to a face to a name. “Are you alright? You can use the bathroom upstairs if you need to. Wait—” A cup of water being forced into his hands, “—Drink this. I’ll send someone to check on you.”

Kentarou grunts out a thanks, downs the water, and stumbles up the stairs to the bathroom. He hasn’t even had that much to drink, but his tolerance is next to none. 

He finds himself standing in front of the mirror, gripping the sink, staring at himself. It’s almost him, it’s the same shapes and colours: narrowed eyes, bleached buzzed head— but something is wrong. There’s a haze settled over his features, or maybe just his own eyes, warping everything he sees. He lifts a hand and raps a knuckle on the mirror, almost flinches at the sound. There is too much of him here, and still not enough. Every part of him lurches to extremes. He shakes his head, tries to loosen every tied up thought firing inside it. 

Kentarou feels like he’s floating in a lake frozen over, blindfolded. No sense of direction, just pitch black terror seeping into his skin. And even if he finds his way to the surface, he can’t break through the ice. He’s trapped, he’s hopeless, he’s—

He’s throwing up into the toilet. How he got from sink to the ground, limbs crashing into the tiles, emptying his guts out, he doesn’t know. It’s all he can do to keep from choking on the bile. He finishes, eyes watering, breath heaving, and he doesn’t know how long it’s been, grasp of time long gone, but he’s thinking almost clearly again, or it feels like it. 

He barely registers rinsing his mouth out and then drags himself to the bed and sits with his head tilted back, resting against the wall. He shuts his eyes and counts his breaths and then counts the seconds before he decides to count his heartbeats again. 

“What are you doing?”

Kentarou drops his hand and jerks his head up to see Kei leaning against the doorframe. “Your pulse? You do it a lot,” Kei says, tapping a finger under his jaw to illustrate. Kentarou stares as he drags it down the expanse of his neck. The party downstairs fades into white noise. “Why? Are you on meds or something?”

Kentarou presses his lips together. “Why are you here?” he asks.

“Kogane sent me to make sure you hadn’t died,” Kei waves a hand vaguely. “Answer the question.”

And Kentarou should have said _fuck off_ or _get out_ or _mind your own business_ or anything except for the truth. But he remembers that boy with the hair and the smile and thinks about Kei going back to him, and some small part of Kentarou just wants Kei to stay a little longer, if only for a second. 

“I’m not on meds,” Kentarou says, and he should have left it there, but there’s a disconnect between his brain and his mouth and the ugly mass in his stomach. 

He’s a study in contradictions. Frozen heart, skin burning, each end of the spectrum tugging him apart from the inside. There is so much of him, and he is still not enough. Not enough to keep his mother alive, his father sober, not enough to make Nationals, not enough for Shigeru— Not enough for Kei.

Maybe that’s why he tells him. He’ll do anything to keep him looking at him, even for a minute, even for a second. He needs a chance. “I need to check— check that I’m alive?” 

He hadn’t meant to phrase it as a question but saying it out loud reframes how idiosyncratic it is. But Kei doesn’t even blink and Kentarou hates that he’s grateful for it. “Have you checked, then? Do you know?”

Anyone else, and they would have seen fists flying and broken teeth before they could even finish asking. Anyone else. But there is no taunt in Kei’s voice, he isn’t making fun. It’s just a question, so Kentarou answers. “No. You interrupted me.”

“Oh,” Kei’s mouth quirks upwards in not-quite-a-smile and he’s very close now. “I’m sorry.”

And now there is a jibe, a challenge. “It’s fine,” Kentarou grinds out.

Kei sits next to him on the bed, torso twisted so they face each other. “Do you,” he starts, “Want me to check?”

“What?”

“Your pulse. Let me check for you.” It isn’t a question. One thing Kentarou has learnt is that Kei prefers to ask forgiveness over permission, and rarely even that. 

Kentarou has spent his whole life holding his breath. There’s a spark in his bloodstream that has never lit the fuse in his heart but the possibility looms over him like a terrible curse. Trigger, bang. 

Only now, with Kei so close, and that question in the air, Kentarou thinks that today might be the day that everything comes to a head. Anything can happen in the dark of someone else’s home. 

“Do you trust me?” Kei asks.

Does Kentarou trust him? With a ball, yes. Blind faith on the court, it’s the only way they work. But now? Does Kentarou trust him to not dig into him and rip him up, have his fun and leave a pile of half-finished thoughts on the floor? “No.”

Kei smiles, a rare one that Kentarou’s only ever seen after a perfect block. “Good,” he says. “It’s more fun that way.”

And, oh, Kentarou’s dying tonight.

“Did you know, Kyoutani-san,” Kei murmurs, picking up Kentarou’s wrist, “that I had to do CPR courses as part of my museum training?”

“No,” Kentarou mutters, and he doesn’t look at Kei’s face, feels like he’ll explode if he does. The party noise from downstairs is fuzzy and he feels lightheaded— from alcohol or Kei’s touch, he doesn’t know. 

Kei exhales through his nose in an almost laugh. “We had to learn every pulse point in the human body, in case one was obstructed, or blood flow was cut off.” He trails his fingers over Kentarou’s forearm, touch featherlight. Kentarou watches him do it and ignores the gaze boring into his head. “Do you know them all, Kyoutani-san?” 

Kentarou doesn’t answer him. He’s too in awe of hearing Kei say so many words, directed towards _him,_ in one go. He thinks speaking would shatter whatever drunken illusion is happening. “Okay,” Kei says after a moment. “I’ll show you.”

“This,” Kei presses two fingers flat against Kentarou’s wrist. “Is your radial artery. A classic, of course, but personally, my least favourite. It’s boring. And I can’t even feel your pulse.”

At _can’t feel your pulse,_ Kentarou feels a plume of panic rise up in his stomach. 

“Kyoutani-san,” Kei says firmly, “Breathe. We aren’t done yet.”

Kentarou nods jerkily. Kei takes Kentarou’s arm again and holds it outstretched between them. He taps the crook of Kentarou’s elbow, where the greenish vein stands out. “Brachial pulse,” Kei says. “I don’t like this one much either. It’s tricky because you can’t get a clear reading without the right angle.” Kei bends Kentarou’s arm slightly and twists it to the left and then the right. “Obviously, we’re pressed for time in an emergency, so we’re told to avoid it. I, quite frankly, am not patient enough, emergency or otherwise.”

Kentarou is on fire. Everywhere that Kei touches, he starts a riot, muscle and bone and skin crackling. He never should have agreed to this. Pretty boys are far more trouble than they’re worth. He should have learnt that from Shigeru. Shigeru who was the epitome of poise, in the same way that a snake is graceful, the same way that a knife has allure, but you blink suddenly there is venom in your bloodstream and a blade in your back. Lovely, lethal. 

With Shigeru there was friction— and Kentarou loved it, their ragged push and pull. Shigeru tried to break down his walls, bulldoze them into dust to get to the part of Kentarou that is pink and soft. But Kei doesn’t do any of that. Kei knocks on the door and waits patiently because he knows he’ll be let in eventually. He doesn’t try to break down Kentarou’s walls because Kentarou would do it himself if Kei would just ask. Kentarou would do anything if Kei would just _ask_.

“Kyoutani-san.” Kentarou looks up and his eyes meet molten gold. Kei is not Shigeru. “Are you alright?”

Kentarou barely stops himself from laughing. “You still haven’t checked my pulse properly,” he says. Then tacks on, “I don’t need a high school biology lesson.”

Kei blinks and his left eye twitches, very slightly. If Kentarou hadn’t been looking so hard, he would have missed it. (But Kentarou is always, always watching him far too closely.) Kei shifts closer, twisting his body and swinging a leg over Kentarou’s lap and then he’s straddling Kentarou, knees holding his weight either side of Kentarou’s thighs, hands braced on shoulders. Kentarou’s hands reflexively move to Kei’s waist. “Is this alright?” Kei asks, eyes searching Kentarou’s face.

Kentarou’s heart stutters and starts again. He curls his fingers into Kei’s jeans and nods slightly. 

“Okay,” Kei says gently. He brings his hands up and rests them on either side of Kentarou’s face, pointer and middle fingers pressing into his temples. Kentaro’s breath hitches. Kei freezes, “You okay?”

“Just get on with it,” Kentarou grinds out and shuts his eyes. He doesn’t need the check anymore, not really. Skin on burning skin, hot as coals, that’s enough to wake him up. He’s here, he’s real, and Tsukishima Kei is on top of him. God knows what he’s done to deserve this.

“Pushy,” Kei mutters. “Temporal pulse.” 

He doesn’t say anything else and Kentarou looks at him, “No explanation this time?”

“Thought you didn’t need a biology lesson.”

“I don’t.”

“So I won’t give you one.” Kei tilts Kentarou’s face up. Jerks his chin to the side, exposing his neck. Kentarou makes a vaguely threatening noise from the bottom of his throat, more out of surprise than anything else and looks up from the corner of his eye. Kei quirks a brow, dares him to lash out. He doesn’t.

“You know, if you get it at the right angle, you can see the blood pumping in your neck,” Kei says. Kentarou does know this. He has spent his time sitting in front of the mirror watching his neck, lungs to brain, the thrumming rush of red— but it’s different like this. It feels like every nerve ending is exposed.

Kentarou feels fingers behind his ear, dragging downwards, following the line of his jaw. It isn’t gentle, nails teasing and goading and then the fingers stop. Kentarou silently gives thanks that they’re sitting because his legs would have given out. 

“Carotid artery.” Kei presses down. “The strongest one, closest to the surface, easiest to sever.”

Kentarou says nothing, just breathes raggedly and hopes Kei chalks his high heart rate down to the alcohol in his bloodstream. 

Kei trails his thumb over Kentarou’s adam's apple, putting pressure on the cartilage and then lets it fall in the hollow of his throat. 

“I can feel it here. Elevated.” Kei’s mouth quirks. “Are you nervous, Kyoutani-san?”

 _Asshole._ “I’ve been drinking, haven’t I?”

“I haven’t.” A pause. “Do you want to check mine?”

“Do I—?” Kentarou cuts off, confusion clouding over, and turns his head to face him. Kei’s hand shifts slightly into a light grip around his throat, thumb and pointer on each pulse point. 

“Here.” Kei takes his free hand and picks up one of Kentarou’s, guides it to his own neck and tilts his head. Kentarou slides his fingers against his skin, slots them against where jaw meets throat. He waits for the steady rise and fall, but—

“It’s so fast.”

“Is it?” Kei is watching him, searching his face. Kentarou suddenly feels brave, or stupid, or both. He pulls his finger down Kei’s neck, slips it lower and along his collarbone. Hooks it on his shirt collar, let’s his hand hang. 

“And you’ve not been drinking?” 

“No. What does that tell you, Kyoutani-san?” 

It tells him a lot of things. It’s the squeeze of a trigger.

“That your heart is fucked up.”

Kei chokes out a shocked laugh, and then smiles. “You’re telling me.”

Kentarou looks at him, just looks. He could look forever. Kei leans forward, both wrists resting on Kentarou’s shoulders, fingers tracing patterns into his shoulder blades. 

“We could stop now,” Kei’s lips catch on the shell of his ear. Kentarou swallows. Says nothing. “Or I could show you the rest.”

The rest. _The rest._

Release—

Kei is a light at the end of the tunnel. Swim up, it says, the ice is thinnest here. He isn’t heaven sent, this is not the light of any god Kentarou’s ever known; it’s hellfire, flames licking upwards, sprawling out, burning in crimson and gold. It’s an eruption of heat. He should be scared. But Kentarou’s only ever known extremes, melded them into his veins. When you live your whole life with ice water in your lungs, no amount of warmth is too much. 

So maybe he can have this, if only in the quiet dark, toeing the line between dreaming and dead. He’ll drink it, cupped hands brought to his lips, let it drip down his chin, golden and on fire. 

“Show me.” It’s almost a prayer in its simplicity. “Show me, Tsukishima.” 

  


—

  


Bang.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> well that was a fuckin ... it sure was. i did not mean to write this. it's 2 a.m. my brain went "frogs frogs frogs" the whole time.
> 
> heavily inspired by fatal's [wicked fang](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872283) (if you have not read it yet, what are you doing, please go and read it) with an unhealthy dose of self-projection. apologies to kentarou for that one. 
> 
> uhh lol okay thanks for reading, find me on twitter @aobajohsi, bye


End file.
